Questions and Answers of Supply Chain Management A Logistics

To what degree do you believe Tata Motors will succeed in delivering a successful low-cost vehicle to consumers in India and other developing economies?
What companies compete with the firm you have selected? Do they compete on price, on quality, or on other factors?
Are new competitors to the company likely? Possible?
I s there a threat of substitutes for the industry’s existing products? Are there complementary products that suggest an opportunity for collaboration?
What characteristics of the company’s customer base influence the company’s competitiveness?
What new technologies strongly affect the company you have selected?
What changes in the population might affect the company’s customer base?
What changes in society affect the market for your company’s products?
How does your company’s relationship with suppliers affect its profitability?
What are some key laws and regulations under which this company and industry must operate?
How does the state of the economy influence the sales of this company’s products?
We outlined several proactive responses that organizations can make to the environment. What examples have you seen recently of an organization’s responding effectively to its environment? Did the
Select two organizations that interest you. Do some research and talk with an employee or two, if possible.How would you characterize the cultures they have?Write a paragraph that describes each
When you visited colleges to select one to attend, were there cultural differences in the campuses that made a difference in your choice? Did these differences help you decide which college to attend?
Jeff Bezos’s shareholder letter called Amazon a good place to fail, since “failure and invention are inseparable twins.” What do you think is the relationship between failure and invention?
Is it possible for a company to be as innovative and successful as Amazon without having a particular type of culture? What would the most appropriate type of culture be?
It’s likely that no individual member of Amazon’s Marketplace could by itself pose a serious competitive threat to the company’s retail business. Why do you think Jeff Bezos still thought it
Identify as many of Amazon’s external competitors as you can in the market for retail consumer goods.What effect do you think the Marketplace has on these competitors?
Can most organizations really be profitable while making a positive impact on the environment and society? What challenges do they face?
Can you envision a world that doesn’t produce waste?What changes are needed before that can happen?
How will the question of what constitutes effective management be answered during the conference?
What will be the specific subject content of the conference?
Who will the instructors be?
What will be the conference’s duration?
How can the conference’s effectiveness be evaluated?
What policies should the State Division of Human Services adopt regarding who the conference participants should be and how they should be selected? How can these policies be implemented best?
To what degree do you think that Zappos’ new holacratic approach to organizing will enhance its competitive advantage in innovation, quality, service, speed, and cost competitiveness? Explain.
How do the characteristics of management decisions—uncertainty, risk, conflict, and lack of structure—affect the decision facing Stan Eagle?
What steps can Eagle take to increase the likelihood of making the best decision in this situation?
How did each member frame the problem? What did each member discuss?
How effectively did the group generate and evaluate alternatives?
What was its final decision?
Evaluate the effectiveness of the group’s decision making.
How could the group’s effectiveness be enhanced?
What problem did you hope to solve by making this purchase?____________________________________________________________________________________________
What alternative (or competing) products did you consider?____________________________________________________________________________________________
How did you evaluate the different alternative (or competing) products? Did you identify each product’s strengths and
When you made the final choice, was it a maximizing, satisficing, or optimizing outcome?____________________________________________________________________________________________
After purchasing the product, how frequently did you test it out?____________________________________________________________________________________________
Was your decision to make the purchase a positive or negative one? Did it satisfy your original need(s)?____________________________________________________________________________________________
Discuss Uber’s success and crises in terms of risk, uncertainty, and how its managers are handling the company’s challenges. What is the current news on this company?
Identify a decision you made that had important unexpected consequences. Were the consequences good, bad, or both? Should you, and could you, have done anything differently in making the decision?
What do you think are some advantages and disadvantages to using computer technologies in decision making?
Discuss the potential advantages and disadvantages of using a group to make decisions. Give examples from your experience.
What ideas from this chapter could improve decision making at Uber?
What’s been happening lately? Has there been any evidence of improved decision making?
What problems could this action cause?
What can we do to prevent the problems?
What unintended benefits or opportunities could arise?
How can we make sure they happen?
How can we be ready to act when the opportunities come?
Why do you think it took so long for Uber’s management to recognize that the company had a problematic corporate culture? What indications of the problem did it apparently overlook?
Assuming the investigation confirms that the problem is an aggressive company culture that discriminates against women, how do you think the company’s managers should begin to generate solutions?
How can you best describe the difference between what is actually happening and what should be happening?
What is/are the cause(s) of the deviation?
What short- and long-term goals need to be met?
Which goals are absolutely critical to the success of the decision?
Summarize the basic steps in any planning process.
Describe how to integrate strategic planning with tactical and operational planning.
Identify elements of the external environment and internal resources of the firm to analyze before formulating a strategy.
Define core capabilities and explain how they provide the foundation for business strategy.
Summarize the types of choices available for corporate strategy.
Discuss how companies can achieve competitive advantage through business strategy.
Describe the keys to effective strategy implementation.
According to Novo Nordisk, only four companies have incorporated Triple Bottom Line goals into their bylaws. Why do you think so few companies take this step?
Assume you want your employer to consider adopting a Triple Bottom Line philosophy. How would you pitch the idea? With whom would you speak?
How will we get there (e.g., by increasing sales or acquiring another company)?
How will we win in the market (e.g., by keeping prices low or offering the best service)?
How fast will we move and in what sequence will we make changes?
How will we obtain financial returns (low costs or premium prices)?
At which steps of the planning process would you say Disney Interactive most needs improvement? Why?
How can Pitaro ensure that strategic, tactical, and operational management are well aligned?
How clear is Walt Disney Company’s mission? How well does its strategy support the mission?
• In the BCG matrix (see again Exhibit 4.11), where would you place Disney’s main businesses? How well is Disney matching its strategic moves to the businesses’positions in the matrix?
This chapter opened with a quote from former CEO of GE Jack Welch: “Manage your destiny, or someone else will.” What does “managing your destiny” mean for strategic management? What does it
List the six steps in the formal planning process.Suppose you manage a local business and you want to launch a new website. What activities you would carry out during each step to create the site?
How might an organization such as Urban Outfitters use a strategy map? With your classmates and using Exhibit 4.4 as a guide, develop a possible strategy map for the company.
Review Exhibit 4.6, which lists the components of an environmental analysis. Why is this so vitally important to a company’s strategic planning process?
What are the core capabilities of Harley-Davidson Motor Company motorcycles? How do these capabilities help Harley-Davidson compete against foreign competitors such as Yamaha and Suzuki?
How would you describe the company’s former business strategy?
Why is the company changing its strategy? What external forces are encouraging it to change?
How would you describe the new business strategy?
What strategic goals or major targets does the company hope to achieve?
How does the company intend to translate its new strategic goals into tactical or operational plans? Which levels of management will carry out these plans?
To what extent do you think the new strategy will be successful in addressing or adapting to the external forces? Explain.
Prepare a SWOT analysis for Wish You Wood, based on the information given.
Describe how different ethical perspectives guide decision making.
Explain how companies influence their ethics environment.
Outline a process for making ethical decisions.
Summarize the important issues surrounding corporate social responsibility.
Discuss reasons for businesses’ growing interest in the natural environment.
Identify actions managers can take to manage with the environment in mind.
In what ways do you think Barefoot College’s mission and goals demonstrate a utilitarian philosophy of ethics?
Which of Barefoot College’s guiding principles have you observed where you have worked or volunteered?Choose a principle you might not have observed and explain how you would go about incorporating
Improving energy efficiency saves IBM millions of dollars, but recycling its used electronics requires hiring hundreds of people. Is the recycling program justifiable? Why or why not?
Choose one or more topics from Exhibit 5.3 and discuss their current status and the ethical issues surrounding them.
Identify and discuss illegal, unethical, and socially responsible business actions in the current news.
You have a job you like at which you work 40 to 45 hours per week. How much off-the-job volunteer work would you do? What kinds of volunteer work? How will you react if your boss makes it clear he or
What are the arguments for and against the concept of corporate social responsibility? Where do you stand and why? Give your opinions about some of the in-text examples.
A company in England slaughtered 70,000 baby ostrich chicks each year for their meat. It told a teen magazine that it would stop if it received enough complaints. Analyze this policy, practice, and

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